Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The meaning of MMORPG

One thing that the release of BC has impressed on me is we are not playing a single player game. I think only during new releases do you really feel how massively multiplayer a game is.

Between the first release and the second, you usually come across a slew of players in a major city. But once you were out questing I'd hardly ever come across someone questing in the same area as I was.

Normally an NPC gives you a quest to kill Mob Y, you travel to the area, hunt Mob Y and kill it, return to the NPC and you're done.

Well right now, little more than a week after release, an NPC gives you a quest to kill Mob Y, you travel to the area and you either see Mob Y already dead or you see other players waiting for Mob Y to spawn so they can kill it before you do. Players with instant casts are able to tag it first and get credit and you may be waiting for a while before you get your chance.

As we tried to find one of these mobs the friend I level with said "Why can't I just pick up my quest and finish it without having to fight someone over mobs!"

This is what multi-player means. Your world is affected by what other people do. And we don't even play on a PvP server, so those around you can have even a bigger affect on what you can get accomplished.

Within alliance it is easy to ask someone to join us for a kill instead of trying to beat them to tagging it first. With horde its tougher, but I've had /wait work.

While it can get annoying and you definitely wouldn't want to be the victim of griefing, I like to think it is neat that someone else affects my gameplay. It adds variety to "kill 10 x". After all these are the same "someone else's" that if I find a mob I can't kill by myself will be the ones I ask for help.

Are you the type of person who tags first whether you were there first (come on admit it!) or not? Do you try to work with the people around you to finish the quest? Or do you just leave and come back later when there are less spawn campers?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i had been up against 30 or so blood elves trying to grab a bosses head in the starting area. i teamed up with another 4 people, which made the chances of tagging alot higher and gave the others a higher chance to grab him when he respawned. win win.

Anonymous said...

I always invite anyone around me to my group. Usually without a whisper because frankly I am running through quests as quickly as possible, and that takes time during which the mob might respawn. I also try to wave at them, so it is obvious I am in the area and not some completely random invite. If they do not accept, I will tag the mob if I can, and help them kill it if they tag it first. But usually, even BE-s Good points here though!

Anonymous said...

If it's a boss or single spawn, I always try to team up with those around me. I've met some cool people this way and often we continue to quest together for a while.

If it's a "Kill 10 X mobs" quest, it's whoever tags it.

Keystone said...

I dinged 62 on my Human Mage last night with the help of an Undead Warlock (on a PvP server).

I saw him fighting a mob and helped him finish so another would respawn faster, then when one respawned I hit it and he helped me kill it, this went on until we were both done.

It's amazing what people can accomplish without verbal communication!

Anonymous said...

That's incredible in a PvP server. I did that once on a PvE server and it was pretty cool. Cooperating when you could be killing each other is awesome.

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